Church Membership I

How important is church membership? I have been thinking about this question a lot lately as in working in a baptist church we require membership to be accompanied with a couple of things.

1. The taking of our Discover Class (a 4 hour class designed to communicate the church's theology, doctrine, and mission/vision to the attendee)
2. A testimony of born-again faith to the church's leadership board accompanied with a time for questions from the board to the candidate and vise versa.
   
3. A testimony of being baptized by immersion or the desire to do so soon (only after they have been baptized is their membership final). This point is usually the hot topic and has historically been in the church a point of division and debate.
   

John Piper recently dissected this issue at Bethlehem Baptist Church and this sermon pretty much blew me away. I highly encourage you to watch this sermon if you are struggling with church membership and baptism. The issue in his sermon wasn't baptism by immersion, but church membership and how it relates to membership. Here is an excerpt from the sermon.

"The issue was: How should our church relate to those who are born again, and deeply committed to the Bible and to Christ, but are not yet persuaded that their infant baptism is unbiblical and invalid? Should such believers be admitted in some cases to membership at Bethlehem? Or to put the question in the larger general way: Should the front door of the local church be roughly the same size as the door to the universal body of Christ? In other words, should we say to any person: We know you have truly entered into membership in the universal body of Christ, but you may not enter into membership in this local expression of the body of Christ?

Or another way to put the issue is: How does the seriousness of exclusion from local church membership compare with the seriousness of not being baptized even though, after studying the Scriptures and trying to be obedient, the unbaptized person believes that he is baptized? In the real world where genuine, Bible-believing, gospel-loving, Christ-exalting, missions-minded Christians do not agree on the meaning of baptism in the New Testament, how should we relate to each other?

On the one hand, if we say, “You may be a member of this church even though you are not biblically baptized,” that seems to undermine the importance that the New Testament puts on baptism. All Christians we know about in the early church were baptized (except the thief on the cross). That is how you expressed your faith publicly and became part of the visible church.

On the other hand, if we say, “Even though you are born again and a member of Christ, you may not be a member of this church,” that seems to undermine the person’s faith and the meaning of the local church. It seems to undermine faith because from one angle, exclusion from membership is like front-end excommunication before membership has happened. When you excommunicate a member from the church, according to Matthew 18:17, you “let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” In other words, you love him and try to win him as an unbeliever. That sounds really serious. Are we saying to those we exclude from membership that they are in the category of an unbeliever?

And saying no to a genuine believer who is part of the universal body of Christ seems to undermine the meaning of the local church as an expression of that universal church."

Piper provide 5 strands of evidence in the NT for church membership

• The Church Is to Discipline Its Members - Church membership is implied by the way the church is supposed to discipline its members. Consider the implication of Matthew 18:15–17. If there is no church membership, how can you define the group that will take up this sensitive and weighty matter of exhorting the unrepentant person and finally rendering a judgment about his standing in the community? It’s hard to believe that just anyone who showed up claiming to be a Christian could be a part of that gathering. Surely, “the church” must be a definable group to handle such a weighty matter. You know who you mean when you “take it to the church.”
• Excommunication Exists - Church membership is implied by the simple fact that excommunication even exists. Paul implies this in 1 Corinthians 5:12–13. Being in the church is definable. The other implication is that a person can be removed from being “in the church.” Such a formal removal would not be possible if there were no such thing as a clear membership—who is an accountable part of this body, and who is not?
• Christians Required to Submit to Their Leaders - Church membership is implied in the biblical requirement of Christians to be submitted to a group of church leaders, elders, or pastors. The point here is that without membership, who is it that the New Testament is referring to who must submit to a specific group of leaders? (Hebrews 13:17)

• Shepherds Required to Care for Their Flock - Church membership is implied in the way the New Testament requires elders to care for the flock in their charge (Acts 20:28).
• The Metaphor of the Body - Church membership is implied in the metaphor of the body(1 Corinthians 12:12–31). The original meaning of the word member is member of a body, like hand and foot and eye and ear. So the question this imagery raises for the local church that Paul is describing in 1 Corinthians 12 is: Who intends to be treated as a hand or foot or eye or ear of this body? There is a unity and organic relationship implied in the imagery of the body. There is something unnatural about a Christian attaching himself to a body of believers and not being a member of the body.

How important is church membership to you?